Thanks gilgalad, I'll agree about the layers, takes a while but looks good. Note that the skin just under his right eye is too dark, I fixed that some minutes ago.I hope all scouts will turn out like this one, at least I'm planning to have them look like him. I had expected the white hand to be tricky, but I think it's nice already. Luckily, for there are many more to be done!

-Pictures (couldn't get any outside because of the horrible weather, so had to photoshop them to reasonable quality):

No pics of the vikings yet, for the simple reason barely any are actually finished. I should get some completely done this week, and surely you'll see them when that happens.

Here some more scouts instead. All mighty 4 that I did since my last post...

What's more... Harad. After quite some months of doubting what to do with them, I decided to go with what more or less was my original idea: a neutral faction within the realm, not directly influenced by Sauron. For the eventual army, some ideas will be drawn from the Hashashin guild, which most of you will know from Assassins Creed. They were a muslim order of 'secret agents' who used all kinds of little tricks to get some power, something which proved to be reasonably succesful. Anyway, here's the colourscheme that I thought up for the normal warriors (not the assassins or assassins in training, more like the militia). For once, I'm happy with the combination of colours.

To accompany that army, I needed at least one Hashashin/Hasharin. Because I wanted something special (and because I think the normal model is nice, but not amazing (enough)) I began looking for some kind of robed figure which could become one of those guys. I came up with the following conversion of Glorfindel, which is also my first attempt at sculpting clothing, something which I will no longer do when it's in such weird angles for the next 3 months or so.Here goes:

And, to answer some previous questions:

Lurtz' skin didn't get a wash, the scouts are made of washes though. After painting and highlighting (once) them in the usual fashion (though a bit brighter for these scouts) they got both a black and, when dried, brown wash, for shading & nice rusty effects. The complete figure got the wash.

That Hasharin looks fabulous! And you were saying that you found it hard to sculpt cloth?! You did an excellent job. Cheers, looking forward to meet them on the field (next Wednesday thus). I love the colour scheme on the Haradrim archer. It looks natural and it seems very fitting.

Thanks for the praise guys, appreciated. The sculpting is almost done as you can see, just some minor stuff to be done were his right hand is (under the cloak).May be able to finish that stuff today.Furthermore, I'll try to complete two viking warriors paintingwise, possibly also finding some time to go to the local store in order to get my viking leader: Odin himself! The Gandalf miniature (with hat) fits the image of Odin as the grey wanderer, and with some small work he'll be perfect. Here's a quick photoshoppy showing how he should turn out to be...Note that the staff could become a spear or remain as a staff, and his horse may get some extra legs, if I find a way to make that fit...